British air passengers have told of their terror as a jet plunged 19,000ft
after the fuselage ruptured leaving a gaping hole.

The 300 travellers on the 747, flying from London to Melbourne, said there was an "almighty bang" and then the oxygen masks dropped after the metal panels in front of the right wing were blown from the aircraft.

The aeroplane, run by Australian airline Qantas, then filled with mist as a rush of air caused a massive drop in cabin pressure and left the pilots fighting for control of the aircraft.

Eventually they managed to right the aircraft, but not before it had lost 19,000 ft in altitude, and then nursed it to Manila airport for an emergency landing.

For many passengers it was only then the enormity of their ordeal finally hit home and they burst into tears or entered shock.

Debra Manchester, a passenger in first class, said there was a "huge bang" and a "massive rush of wind," with debris swirling around the cabin. Mrs Manchester, a housewife from Buckinghamshire, said there was an atmosphere of chaos as passengers struggled to put their oxygen masks on.

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"Newspapers and what looked like part of the ceiling flew past me. We didn't know what was happening to the plane. After a while things calmed down and there was a deadly silence. There was still debris all around our feet but we all started to feel a bit safer when we could take our masks off," she said.

Phil Rescall, 40, a businessman from Chippenham in Wiltshire, added: "I'd gone to sleep and was rudely awakened by a very very loud bang.

"On looking around the cabin there was mist crawling around the cabin and the oxygen masks had dropped.

The pilot descended the plane very quickly, very controlled but very quickly."

When passengers disembarked in Manila Airport, some vomited in shock when they saw a hole "the size of a minivan" in the side of their aeroplane.

Brendan McClements, an Australian businessman said: "When the crew came off everyone applauded and when the pilot came off he got a round of applause too."

The aeroplane ran into trouble on the second leg of its journey just an hour after it took off from Hong Kong airport at 1am our time.

Reports that a bomb had been responsible were quickly dismissed by airport authorities, although aviation experts said among just a handful of explanations for the hole.

Experts said the dramatic incident was most likely to have been caused by either corrosion to the inside of the plane, such as a liquid spilled in the cabin above that had laid undetected, or damage caused by freight or a maintenance vehicle that had been badly repaired.

In footage shot inside the cabin on a passenger's mobile phone, a child can be heard crying as screens on the front of seats showed the altitude drop from 9,650 feet to 9,500 feet in a matter of seconds.

The damage consisted of a fibre glass panel running from the wing into the main fuselage which had been torn off to reveal a gaping hole in the baggage hold of the plane three yards wide.

David Learmont, operations and safety editor of Flight International magazine, said: "Over a period of years, a weak spot could have developed with pressurisation and that can ultimately lead to a blow-out."

But he stressed that such incidents are not uncommon. "It looks dramatic and it would have felt very dramatic but these passengers would not have been in any real danger," he said.

"The pilot would have taken the decision to descend rapidly to ensure a good oxygen supply for the passengers because there is very little oxygen in the masks."

Kieran Daly, editor of online Air Transport Intelligence (ATI), may have already established the cause of the blowout.

"They need to ensure it's not something that affects the whole fleet," he said. "That's unlikely but not impossible."

The Qantas chief executive officer Geoff Dixon said initial inspections showed the aircraft had sustained a hole in its fuselage, and it was currently being inspected by engineers.

He said the flight crew performed emergency procedures after oxygen masks were deployed and there were no reports of any injuries.

Dixon said the Australian Transportation Safety Bureau and Civil Aviation Safety Authority had been notified and Boeing engineers were at the scene.